


The Goblin Market

by yacayaca



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 15:25:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9554948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yacayaca/pseuds/yacayaca
Summary: A human enters the goblin market.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this to practice describing a scene, and it went somewhere I wasn't expecting at all. Any comments are appreciated, and enjoy!

THE GOBLIN MARKET. Finally you’re here, after more years of trying than you’d care to admit. Doing your best not to stand out too clearly as an outsider, you marvel at the scene around you. The narrow alley you walk in is choked with people of all breeds and races, lycanthrops and dwarves and elves, all jostling each other and calling to people. To the left and right are stalls, the styles and goods as varied as the shopkeeps: a gargoyle woman selling precious metals with strange properties in a stall of slowly shifting stone; a tall, stooped man with pointed ears and slitted eyes selling finely woven fabric dyed colors that hurt to look at; a creature that appears to be a living tree selling bottles of white light and laughter. The calls across the market came in every language you know, as well as several more that you’ve never even heard of, lilting words that slip from your mind as soon as you hear them; guttural growls that you feel in your chest and things that barely sound like noise and make your head ache if you focus too hard on them. You can smell the food being cooked at various stalls, mixing oddly with the scents of potions and people.  


Someone bumps against you from behind and you stumble forward, suddenly aware that you had stopped moving to gawk. Pulling your enchanted cloak closer around you, you begin once again to walk quickly, glancing anxiously around to see if anyone had noticed your slip up. No one appears to be looking at you, so you relax minutely and count your blessings. You refocus on your task, looking around and remembering what the merrow-man had told you.  


_“When you arrive at the market, there will be things there unlike anything you’ve seen in the human plane,” he says, “things that human minds aren’t built to understand. Keep moving, don’t focus on anything that makes your head hurt.”  
_

_“And if I do?” you say, feeling vaguely offended on behalf of humanity. He looks at you consideringly for a moment, then nods, seemingly coming to a decision.  
_

_“You’ll die,” He says decisively. “And it will be a vicious death too, lots of screaming and pain as your brain basically implodes. And it will be very obvious that you were a human, and then I’ll die, when they find out who let a human into the Goblin Market.” You draw back, horrified. He looks satisfied, then continues. “The stall you’re looking for appears at the market only for a few minutes at midnight on the solstices.” He pauses to regard you seriously. “If you miss this opportunity, you won’t have another chance for six months.”_  


You glance up as a series of chimes sound twelve times, announcing the hour. The mood of the market seems to shift slightly, some stall owners looking up and shifting nervously, some even beginning to hurriedly pack up their wares, while others begin to grin and relax. The mottled moonlight falling from between the leaves of the trees seems to dim slightly, shadows grow longer, and the calls all have an edge to them now, everyone slightly more uneasy. You swallow nervously and speed up. The clock’s ticking.  


_“The stall will be tucked into a corner, probably in the busiest part of the market, but no one will be in front of the stall, and the owner will not be hawking their wares.”_  


All around you, stalls are packing up, or simply vanishing, as new stalls appear in their places. The precious metals are replaced with disturbingly contorted stone figures that exude airs of terror and hatred, the woven fabrics replaced with voodoo dolls and portable curses, the bottles of light replaced by thick, pungent potions and poisons. The crowd has split: half are frantically pushing towards the lantern lit pathways out of the market, while the other half shriek in delight and rush to examine the new goods for sale. The overall effect is chaos, swirling crowds of people filling every corner of the market. Except one. You notice a small pocket of absolute stillness in the mayhem, a shadowy corner containing only one stall, and no one else appears to have noticed it.  


_“The stall’s wares vary, always showing someone what they want most. Be wary, however, as many say that this is but a glamour, and all agree that these items are cursed. Focus not on the wares but on the seller, as they deal in secrets, and likely know what you need.”_  


You hike up the cloak around your ankles and begin to walk briskly toward the stall. You fight your way through crowds of people moving in patterns similar to water currents, and several times you are almost swept away. When you finally reach the stall, several minutes have passed and you are frantic. You push past the last several people and stumble into the field of silence surrounding the stall, catching yourself on the table displaying the wares.  


Now several things happen in quick succession. First, the hum in your ear from the magic of the cloak cuts out suddenly, signifying that your disguise’s time has run out, and you are now clearly a human in a cloak to anyone who cares to look at you. You look desperately around for a moment, but no one seems to have noticed you yet. You turn back to the stall, still holding to the table, and meet the eyes of the stallkeeper, who stares at you with a vicious, toothy smile, leaning towards you.  


_“Whatever you do, don’t tell them what you are.”_  


You freeze, and then suddenly you’re somewhere else. The noise of the market cuts out suddenly and the light goes with it, leaving you with nothing but the ringing silence in your ears and a table beneath your fingers.  


You jerk back in surprise. The table disappears as soon as you break contact with it, and with it leaves any sense of direction you might have had.  


_A thought occurs to you suddenly. “If this market is the only place where I can find this merchant, and they are only at the market a few minutes a year, where are they the rest of the time?” you ask. ___  


You fumble for the magnesium flare on your belt, designed to drive away fire-repulsed creatures, but capable enough at lighting spaces, if only for a moment.  


You find the flare and toss it at the ground. It ignites, lighting the area around you fully for maybe two and a half seconds. For the first second or so, you are blinded by the sudden brightness, but you notice, as your vision clears, that the light didn’t actually reveal anything. The blackness did not retreat, and the thought occurs to you that perhaps there is nothing to reveal, that the place you find yourself in is not, in fact, a place, but instead the absence of one.  


_“The place between places,” the merrow-man says darkly. “The ecalpon. A place both everywhere and nowhere. If you get stuck in the ecalpon, you’re not coming out.”_  


The darkness seems to press against you harder, smothering you, suffocating you, filling up your lungs with nothing, and suddenly you can't breathe. Your hands fly to your throat in a sudden panic, and you turn in useless circles, desperately trying to find something to give you your breath back somehow.  


You don’t actually expect to find anything, of course, so when you come face to face with the shopkeep, you startle backwards, trip over your feet and fall over. Your landing somehow manages to knock the air back into your lungs, and you suck in a breath as the shadows seem to retreat slightly. The stall owner seems to find this hilarious, laughing uproariously as you stare at them.  


They are sitting on nothing, swinging their legs as they look down at you. Their laugh sounds like that of hundreds, and with a shock you realise that their entire body is covered in dozens, maybe hundreds, of mouths, some horrifying jagged cuts full of needle-like teeth, some pretty lips with perfectly white teeth and cherry colored lipstick, all open and laughing. They have only one set of ears, but what a pair of ears! Reminiscent of an elephant’s in size but still the shape of human ears, they each are easily the size of the stallkeeper’s entire head. Their face is mostly taken up with an enormous set of eyes, a mournful quality to them that seems out of place among so many grinning mouths.  


Their laughter subsides and they lean towards you. “A human!” they say, dozens of mouths speaking together, each a different voice, several different languages. It hurts to listen to them. “We haven’t seen a human in a good many moons.” Those mournful eyes feel like they are boring a hole through your head as you stare at them, and you look away.  


“I have been lead to believe,” you say slowly, keeping your eyes on a green-lipped mouth somewhere on their arm, “that isn’t quite accurate.” The mouth stops smiling abruptly, and you move back instinctively.  


“We say we have not, and so we have not,” the stall owner snarls, all mirth gone from their many voices. “Would you make a liar of us?” The darkness presses closer again, stealing your breath and darkening your vision.  


“Of... of course,” you wheeze, struggling to breathe. “My apologies.” The stallkeeper still looks displeased, but the darkness draws back again and you can breathe. “I am told that you know all secrets, and there is one in particular that I seek.”  


“We do not give things away, human,” they say, but they look intrigued. “Everything has a price.”  


“I know,” you say. “I am willing to pay whatever you ask.” At this, the stall owner lights up, hundreds of teeth flashing in sudden smiles. Their many voices begin whispering gleefully to each other. Did you hear that? Whatever we ask! The human will pay whatever we ask, anything at all!  


“We will trade you your secret,” they say, large eyes bright with excitement. “What do you need to learn?”  


“Right,” you say. You take a deep breath and meet their eyes again, staring them down. “Where is my sister?”

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what you think!


End file.
